Tuesday, January 31, 2012

A whole load of minced riffs - a genre one might better call ''shish grind'' (or simply ''šiš pank'' in our upper Balkans here). 'Cause hey, ''mincecore''? Not much better, really. On the other hand, pretty much everybody has had a close encounter with a kebab by now, and some of you also with čevapćići, I am certain. Perhaps the bands here sing against this whole culture of shish (yet, wouldn't ''sakatat'' translate to something along the lines of ''offal'', anyhow? [or '' gut''?] / best name of all the mince-names, there). Perhaps, if I got to the point, I could sell you a few lines about Agathocles worship (as it is what the Archagathi generally profess, you know, in life + a Sakatat cover), about all this damn beautiful noise, wild things that make my heart sing, and so on, but you gotta feel informative to be informative, and this is music to men mincing their own flesh.

Šiš panker je onaj s istetoviranom jetrom. I see I messed up a few titles (like "Archagatus"), the year, etc., so type a few new letters there if you believe it matters. Was certainly on To Live A Lie. What else? Don't know. BUT, relevant to all the Sakatat, you can check out a one-question-interview on the one-and-only Grind & Punishment.

Fastcore, grindcore, etc. What the Sakatat trio pulls of is comparable to a drill the size of a train merely doing its thing. Yup, they're naturals. And not only are they devastating by themselves, but they also do an Assück cover on this one (Wall of Shame). Matka Teresa, on the other hand, like the slow, filthy violence, but - of course - only in-between "lenghty" amounts of The Speed. Sure, they might sound like Mother Theresa, had she ever come to her senses, however, some sort of influence was obviously imposed upon Sakatat, here, as they also decomposed a few of their riffs into greasy slabs of sludge. But only a few. As for the distros, uh, there's a list here.

For some reason I immensely enjoy talking about Assück, a band with all the right notions, 'cause civilization comes, civilization goes... "Quarantined by the plague of government. Ideological barriers of ignorance. Lives changed by concrete. Suppressed by autocracies throughout the centuries."Lives changed by concrete, man.

Mesrine might be the slickest band in the following split-series, but worry not about lack of filth! Our blessed sewers are filthy as fuck, but they are also damn slick so all the cool crocodiles can have a nice time. It is this same line of thought that Mesrine employ while reflecting about you, their listener. As for Sakatat, I hope you've already received this Turkish gift... Contains blastbeats, and no goddamn bass - Ha! They've put out several split releases in 2011, some of which I'll post up right away, but I have a feeling that you'll be seeing more Sakatat in general on here. Damn good stuff, complemented by a Dropdead cover (a nice affinity of theirs / recording one cover for each release, including, for example, Sore Throat, Assück, Agathocles, as you'll see).

My man Alex sent me this powerviolent as fuck mates' of his band a while ago (his link beneath; also, apparently members of Khann, Republicorpse, aaand...), and I've no qualms about my No Qualms experience. "A band of failed musicians lashing out at the society that won't listen to them," in short, but other than that, they keep on thrashing and that bass sometimes sounds like the one and only sweet shit for the soul, stuck in some Lovecraftian pit, recently buried alive, shoveled with shitloads of badly influential bands `a la Despise You, maybe even a little Man is the Bastard, and God knows what else there is as inappropriate on our Earth. Turns out, a whole load of stuff; e.g. The Police, The Police Academy (one to infinity), Robocop (not the band, but, you know, the REAL robot policeman), and the First Cop, to whom, I mean, into whom No Qualms pummel their bed-time / death-time song, all the while humming that theme from Pulp Fiction. But who is he, this First Cop? The Son of God? YOUR son? Either way, this guy, this organ, is certainly not innocent, otherwise No Qualms wouldn't have any qualms about the whole dreadful affair.

Friday, January 20, 2012

To be honest, I might've grown quite tired of d-beat a relatively long while ago, but Shaken Baby is certainly more than just another one of, you know, those. Both fast and swampy, barely dissonant, rhythmically often unpredictable, with a finely woven modern vibe `a la His Hero is Gone or some less obvious band like that, but if it ain't punk I don't know what it is + nice drumming courtesy of Jasper, who is also know as cover artist & brother of the man behind the guitar - Owen - whom you also probably remember for the at least as nice drumming in Kasatka. That is, if you know your fast bands. The final track is classic - a noise track - the worth of which depends on preference (I mean, I liked it), but hey, Shaken Baby is another awesome Belgian band projects to which I can ascribe the "awesome-", and leave out the ''post-'' prefix.

More d-beatery from the Owen (Kasatka) camp, still keeping it interesting. ''But how?'' you might ask. ''How does one keep a band heavy on the d-beat interesting?'' Blastbeats, what else. Yet, despite the addition of the mystical blastbeat, the greasy riffs and composition in-general make China Syndrome the most traditional of the bands in this series; I'm talking about Shaken Baby (one up), Days of Desolation, and Kasatka. Thinking about what else to say, I'm feeling a bit burned out, but it better be obvious that all the bands are well worth your while - if you enjoy the sort of sound described, naturally + what do you know about the Belgian scene beside the goddamn godly gods known as Agathocles, eh? Here's a nice 'n' easy 'n' quality chance for you to learn something new!

So Belgium's got at least two very different bands. Days of Desolation deliver two gloomy, metallized chunks of d-beat driven determination, very tight in performance, all-out melodic or not at all, a bit epic in sound (can't quite pinpoint why, but track two, ''Malignancies'', reminded me of the excellent Suicide Nation from Arizona / might be the clean parts). The League of Mentalmen, on the other hand, sport a filthy as fuck guitar-distrotion that would make Dream Theater sound sloppy and/or cool. Nice shit violence that some predominantly Californian bastard children of music like the Agents of Satan might enjoy and/or do indecent things to. Things like making out, I guess...

You better remember the first cephalappearance of Kasatka! If not, do click. So here's the two-thousand-and-eight demo, obviously, and it's a great thing for those who were left wanting more (thrashing, play-time, attention...) after the decisive piece of thrash that Scene Slaughter was. Yup, seems like I said most of it in the relevant post, but I'll throw some keywords for the new ones: thrash, fastcore, punk as fuck, nice drumming. Also, no bass guitar, but that bass drum sure sounds sticky.

A leaden stride to the blogosphere

Cephalochromoscope means grindcore and generally noisy, fast-as-fuck punk, or all that but at the speed of a tectonic plate. Also reviews, interviews, and all that jazz. And actual jazz. Hey, if you like the music and it's still in print thus making it possible for you to do some fine record shopping, feel free to do so. Let me know if you wish to contribute. Submissions are not really welcome or unwelcome, but I can't really promise when / if a post will be made anymore; in any case, use the e-mail address below, be as fast (/as slow) as possible with your music, don't be damn generic, don't expect a "hey this is x from x and they're fucking awesome" post, and try to provide relevant info with cover art instead of continuing the undying, ever-uninspiring contest in global half-assedness. [I do hate to be professional.] For any bands and/or labels with objections, please send your complaints to my e-mail address (otherwise, we might simply reupload!):zmajeee (at) yahoo.com

It is nice if people leave a comment or two every once in a while. Also, by downloading from this blog you automatically acknowledge Discordance Axis as the best band ever. This being the most important rule of attaining blastbeatitude. Just sayin'.